Tuesday Mar 18, 2025

Interview with Bart Swings, leader of Powerslide Matter World Team

Technical sheet Name: SwingsFirst name : BartNickname: The FlashDate of birth: 12/02/1991Height: 178cmWeight: 67kgBorn in: HerentLives in: HerentBegins to skate in: 1999Category: senior EliteJob/studies: Mechanics and Electronics EngineeringStrengths: strong in hard races and speedPoints to improve: my 100m startOther sports: noneThe last film he saw: The Dark Knight RisesFavorite music: Kanye westVideo games: Call of DutyReading: none 🙂Like: foodDislike: when people aren’t straightforwardQualities: hard workerFaults: bad loserClub: RSC HeverleeTeam: Powerslide Matter World TeamBest memory: My first senior gold medal in […]

John Joseph Merlin – the first officially recognized inventor of the roller skate

Biography of John Joseph Merlin (1735-1803) John Joseph Merlin was born on 17.09.1935 in Huy (Belgium) and died in London (England) at the age of 68 years. We owe him the first roller skates. As a young man, he worked in Paris, where he made watches, music boxes, musical instruments and other things that demanded […]

2014 Speed Skating Worlds: Day 2 on Track

The second half of the second day of the 2014 Speed Skating Worlds in Rosario, Argentina, was disrupted by the rain. All of the finals were postponed until the early morning of the next day. Results of the races… 500 m and 1000 m junior men’s: Colombia by a whisker Edwin Estrada (COL) won by […]

The History of Skating from 1760 till Today

OLS publishes an overview of the history of skating, from the creation of the first inline skates to traditional skates through ‘cycle-skates’. Let’s pay tribute to one of the few skate historians, Sam Nieswizski, the author of ‘Rollermania’ (1991), that remains the key reference in the history of skating through the ages… Did the first […]

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